Brad Lander arrested by ICE in the middle of court: The New York politician handcuffed

Federal agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency detained a top New York City politician on Tuesday as the fall-out from the immigration crackdown continues.

The city’s comptroller Brad Lander was arrested by agents while guiding a defendant out from an immigration court in the city. A statement from ICE claims that Lander was arrested "for assaulting law enforcement and impeding a federal officer," a claim that Lander disputes.

Within minutes of the incident videos began circulating online which showed Landers leading a man through a hallway in a courthouse. ICE agents were attempting to detain the man and Lander could be heard asking for a judicial warrant.

“You don’t have authority to arrest US citizens,” Lander can be heard saying on one of the videos. He is currently running to be the next mayor of New York City.

The federal agents promptly arrested Lander and he was released later on Tuesday. Speaking after the release, Lander confirmed that no charges would be brought against him but he maintained that the ICE agents had acted unlawfully in their efforts to detain the man, later identified as Eduardo.

Lander said that Eduardo had been "stripped of his due process rights by a government and a judge that owe him a credible threat hearing before they deport him”.

He continued: “I will be fine, but Edgardo is not going to be fine, and the rule of law is not fine, and our constitutional democracy is not fine.”

ICE is a federal agency which ultimately answers to the president as the head of the federal government. Already we have seen clashes across the country as ICE teams seek to round up individuals that they belief entered the country illegally, regardless of their conduct since arriving in the United States.

Having first caught the national attention in California, resistance to ICE overreach is becoming more common across the country with protests and demonstrations. In New York, Civil Liberties Union executive director Donna Lieberman called for politicians to publicly condemn the arrest of Lander.

“ICE arresting Brad Lander for asking questions is a stunning abuse of power and a threat to our democracy,” she said.

“Arresting a public official, the duly-elected comptroller of the City of New York, for asking questions is dangerous intimidation and shows a wanton disregard for the will of the people of New York.”

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